A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

Why not grounded theory?
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The intent of a grounded theory study is to move beyond description and to generate
or discover a theory, an abstract analytical schema of a process... Participants in the
study would all have experienced the process, and the development of the theory
might help explain practice... (Creswell, 2007:62).
The basic problem preventing me from carrying out my research as a grounded theory study
was, as I have indicated above, that I already had a theory, the affirmative model. Processes
and issues I would have looked to address within such an approach would have included
those by which people with impairments are turned into disabled people and those of being
subjected to endless negative representations. While the insights generated this way would
have provided much interesting material with which to address to my research question, my
aim of clarifying the affirmative model would not have been possible.
(Having carried out analysis of my research since I made the above statement I realise that,
in grounding my affirmative model definitions within insights and perspectives offered by
participants in my research, I have constructed a grounded theory. My analysis has addressed
more or less exactly the processes identified here. However, I maintain that when I began the
process adopting a grounded theory approach seemed inappropriate as, in certain respects,
my theory was already known.)
Why not narrative research?
The procedures for implementing this research consist of focusing on studying one
or two individuals, gathering data through the collection of their stories, reporting
individual experiences, and chronologically ordering the meaning of those
experiences (Creswell, 2007:55).
While a narrative study appealed in terms of the depth it would allow in exploring personal
experiences relating to a very small number of disabled people, including ways in which they
are situated in interactive encounters and their own interpretations of these encounters, I felt
this could be done more effectively by using a larger number of participants. I considered
that to develop a narrative approach would be to restrict myself in terms of collecting a
diverse range of perspectives and perhaps compromise the validity of my conclusions.
Generalisation upon the basis of the experiences of one or two people might be difficult and
unconvincing.